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London protests against the TTIP (the EU's TPP)

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Vice (sadly owned by Rupert Murdoch but still feisty) has a long article and an interview with protestors, but this is the point Mellon has been pounding on:

The most worrying element of the TTIP, however, is the concept of investor state dispute settlements. This will allow corporations to sue countries for creating laws that aren’t beneficial to businesses—and not only for loss of profits, but for loss of future profits. That might sound like the kind of hypothetical horror story you’d see posted on the Infowars forum, but this kind of thing is already happening the world over thanks to older free trade agreements, such as the much criticized North American Free Trade Agreement.

A company called Lone Pine Resources, for example, is suing the Canadian government for $250 million after fracking was temporarily prohibited in Quebec; tobacco giant Philip Morris is suing Australia for making plain packaging mandatory on cigarettes; and when Ecuador tried to re-nationalized their oil industry, Occidental Petroleum Corporation sued them and won $1.7 billion, more than the company’s net income for any of the three previous quarters.

And these aren’t cherry-picked cases; corporations are becoming increasingly willing to seek investor-state dispute settlements. In 2012—the last year with available data—514 cases were filed, the highest number on record. Not only do these settlements cost governments huge amounts of money, they also have a detrimental effect on legislation, as countries are forced to consider how new laws will impact corporations rather than their own citizens.

All of these causes for concern are compounded by the secretive nature of the discussions. So far most of the significant information about the negotiations has come from leaks, and the EU’s chief negotiator has confirmed that all documents pertaining to the discussions will be out of the public’s reach for 30 years.

When you think about it, it's hard to see these trade agreements as anything other than treason.

People should be aware that they are lying about TTIP and the other FTAs - They are a Trojan Horse to block a country's freedom to bring about any positive policy changes in any of the areas where multi-national corporations are involved as they would force taxpayers to pay dearly, literally, for any changes that adversely effect corporate profits. They include a ratchet that slowly forces a series of one way steps to privatization - this process is triggered if there is any privatization at all. And the exception that they use, which is basically the GATS government services exception, is so narrow that it would not apply to any US state or to the UK either.

So they are trying to sneakily block any future policy changes. We need to assert our right to pick public healthcare- - we cannot let them steal our right to keep schools public- by forcing incremental privatizations, one that never lets mistakes be reversed.

We need to do that now. the rights to sue are enjoyed by corporations- so a government official can't blithely say "oh, we would not do that" He cannot say that. He has no authority to say that. After all these private law agreements apparently trump national state and local laws.

So, they said TTIP will not cover financial services.. Ha.. Well, despite a document having been "leaked" supposedly containing the EU "services offer" - isn't TiSA the one that is particularly nasty about services?

TiSA is about services generally, not just financial services. So TiSA will effect schools, it will effect healthcare/medicine finance and delivery, (separately) it will effect computer workers, it will effect service workers of all kinds. People will not be able to move on their own (like in the EU) they will be moved by the multinational-corporations. Will it be possible for multinational-corps to tell their employees to go anywhere in the TiSA countries? (if they manage to be the successful bidder on a contract there) I don't know.

I had in mind the dictionary definition: "a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state." It's hard to see why surrendering huge hunks of our sovereignty to unelected tribunals, and without an open process, doesn't come under that heading.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

Here we are in the (Westphalian) world of state actors, so there isn't a notion of surrendering sovereignty to a non-state actor. I don't know what treason would look like in post-Westphalian world (of market states). Perhaps there is an opportunity to rethink the concept.

...(slimy Bill C. aka slick Willy) but then how do you define treason? Kind of like "is", how do you define it...
The bottom line? Y'all better figure it out and damn quick; the window is closing fast...

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